November 13, 2025 • 24 mins
This week in federal politics there was really only one show in town, and that was the compelling and 'can't look away' car crash that is the Liberal party's continued ructions on its net zero policy.
They culminated, or maybe even concluded, on Thursday afternoon, when the Liberal Party met and finally came up with a policy.
Today, host Jacqueline Maley is joined by chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal and chief political commentator James Massola.
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S1 (00:01):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley. This week in
federal politics, there was really only one show in town,
and that was the compelling and can't look away car
crash that is the Liberal Party's continued ructions on its
net zero policy. They culminated or maybe even concluded on
Thursday afternoon, when the Liberal Party met and finally came
(00:25):
up with a policy.
S2 (00:25):
Liberal party will remove a net zero target from our
policy and if elected, we will remove the 43.
S1 (00:33):
I'm talking to our chief political correspondent, Paul Cicala, as usual,
and our special guest, chief political commentator James Massola, who
have both just come out of the press conference at
Sussan Ley held after that Liberal Party room meeting. Welcome, fellas.
S3 (00:48):
Hey, Jack. Hey, Jack. Good to be with you. Welcome back,
James Long. A long hiatus from the pod. Was just
admiring your blue shirt.
S1 (00:54):
Paul, we've been teasing Paul about his shirt offline, but
you know, the listeners won't be able to you, the
listeners should be picturing Paul in a nice denim shirt anyway.
S3 (01:06):
If I watched the Susan Lee press conference, I could
have seen the shirt. I'm sure many, many people paused
to try and do a Google reverse image search to
see where they could buy it.
S1 (01:12):
Yeah, yeah, we'll put that in the show notes, actually,
where Paul shops through denim shirts. Now, fellas, what happened
in the in the Liberal Party meeting the long awaited
Liberal Party meeting Thursday afternoon.
S3 (01:23):
So this has been the culmination of really months of
internal debate inside the Liberal Party on where they land,
on energy policy going back from the start. There's a
debate right after the election between the nationals and the
liberals on whether they remain together as a party. A
key sticking point for the National Party, led by people
like Matt Canavan, Bridget McKenzie, Barnaby Joyce, who now appears
(01:43):
to be splitting off from the nationals, is that they
want to drop the net zero target to keep the
party together. Sussan Ley tries to find this pathway through,
which is to review all energy policies so she doesn't
commit either way to net zero. She gets the coalition
back together after a brief split, and the party goes on.
This long process of reviewing all of its policies, but
(02:04):
particularly net zero because there's so much heat around it.
The process is pretty slow. It's led by the energy spokesman,
Dan Tehan. There's this working group that meets sometimes but
doesn't make much make many tracks.
S4 (02:16):
It's not clear what they actually achieved, is it? It's not.
Go on.
S1 (02:19):
I want to get to that because I feel like
they haven't really shown us their homework for us to mark.
S3 (02:24):
I had one of a Liberal MP say to me
last night that when they saw the document that Dan
Tehan was drafting for today, that it looked like, uh,
just a cobbling together of some thoughts in the last week.
And they were stunned at how little work had been done.
Dan Tehan would, would object to that because there were
a lot of dot points in it today. Um, but
it wasn't.
S1 (02:43):
A dot point love a dot point.
S3 (02:45):
And so they embark on this process, uh, that Dan
Tehan says publicly could go for about 12, 9 to
12 months. So they'd land an energy policy sometime in
the middle of next year. But then it all accelerates
over the last month or so. The National Party does
its own review, led by Matt Canavan and another MP,
but Matt Canavan is a hardcore anti-net zero. And they
(03:05):
jump the liberals and they say we have no plans
to do net zero junking it entirely. And this jolts
the liberals into action because they necessarily need to speed
up their process to unite on a coalition policy. And
the nationals move, and just the general hostility towards net
zero and Liberal Party base starts to shift attitudes. In
the middle of the Liberal Party room, it shifts from
(03:27):
key right wingers like James Patterson and Angus Taylor from
pro net zero, or at least pro some watering down
of net zero to hard anti net zero. And then
we land today after this real leadership crisis that's occurred
over the past two weeks for Sussan Ley to try
and land a Liberal policy, and here we are today.
S2 (03:41):
Australians deserve affordable energy and responsible emissions reduction.
S1 (03:49):
James tell us about the press conference afterwards. Because, I mean,
going into that meeting, it was pretty much openly reported
by you and other people that they they decided to
dump it or it was it was a done deal
because the numbers for keeping net zero just weren't there.
There weren't enough moderates in the party room to keep
the policy. So what did Susan Lee to sort of justify, say,
(04:10):
to justify this position in, you know, what was quite
a strong press conference afterwards?
S4 (04:14):
Yeah, look, it was a reasonable performance. And I choose
that word performance very carefully, jacki. Yeah.
S1 (04:19):
Good, good. Good word.
S4 (04:20):
Yeah. Um, so where we've landed, of course, is the, uh,
liberals now remain committed to Paris but are coming out
of or would get out of the net zero, uh,
legislative agreement or deal that would repeal the legislation that's
been passed. Susan Lynn was specifically asked, you know, more
than once, um, what about 2030 and 2035, our interim,
(04:45):
what are called nationally determined commitments to reduce emissions ahead
of 2050? And she said, well, you know, they're gone too.
And then, I mean, you know, she said, we're doing
this because we're siding with Australians. We want affordable, reliable
power for them. Like the talking point, she hit all
the talking points. She sounded reasonably good. But, you know,
(05:06):
and she accused the PM of lying about power bills
coming down. And power bills will always be cheaper under
the liberals. But at the end of the day, she
couldn't answer a pretty straightforward question, which is how can
you be in Paris but not committed to net zero
and not have interim targets? Because Paris is a framework
to get to net zero and she doesn't have an answer.
(05:29):
And that, I think, goes to the heart of why
this was not necessarily the most convincing position. It's not
necessarily the most convincing position they've landed in or policy outcome. But,
you know, it was a good performance.
S1 (05:41):
There isn't a policy, I would argue. And this gets
back to the jokes that we're making about Danton's working group.
And no offense to Jan ten or the working group,
but it has been a long time coming that they've
been moving through this process, which has looked very disorderly.
And finally, at the end of the process, all they've
told us is what we kind of already intuited, which
was that they're dumping net zero, just, you know, for listeners,
(06:03):
just to clarify. Australia has ratified into law under Malcolm
Turnbull's government its commitment to the Paris Agreement and and
the target. And then within that, the labor government has
come in. Albanese government has come in. And in 2022
it's legislated its interim targets, including the net zero target. Right.
So so Leigh's basically come out for the first time
and said categorically, if the coalition wins government, we are
(06:25):
going to get rid of those interim targets and long
term targets from Australian legislation. But we're keeping our commitment
to Paris. Nobody knows how that's going to work, and
they haven't told us yet.
S4 (06:36):
One extra little thing I have to add, Jacqui. Um,
it was Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor as energy minister
who signed us up to the 2050. Now they didn't
legislate it. Labor did that. But it was Scott Morrison
and now and sorry and Angus Taylor, who's now one
of the leading proponents of dropping net zero. Yeah. The
other thing I think that's worth pointing out is that
(06:56):
where we've landed now is, you know, okay, they're dropping
support for net zero, but we've arrived here, much like
we did with the voice to Parliament, with the nationals,
the smaller coalition party leading the liberals by the nose
to a position that a lot of liberals, particularly in
the moderate grouping, are not comfortable with. You know, one
of them said to me the other day, why did
(07:18):
we bother supporting Susan to be leader when we're going
to end up with the National's climate policy? And it's
a fair point.
S1 (07:25):
And, Paul, I want to ask you about that, because
the voice is a very interesting comparison, because the voice,
as James has just said, the coalition position ended up
being sort of led by the Nats, and they managed
to turn public opinion around or they managed to kind
of I don't know how you would put it, but
basically they ended up being on the right side of
that argument in terms of what the Australian public wanted.
You know, the Susan Lee press conference was all about
(07:47):
pursuing cost reduction, focusing on households. She talked about being
a mum, you know, with bills, electricity bills piling up
on the windowsill, like she was sort of empathizing with
householders in that same position. Could that be an effective
strategy for them?
S3 (08:01):
Well, I think liberals are right when they they have
justified hope that if they get their show in order
and develop a coherent plan around climate change and electricity prices,
that there are serious chinks in Labor's armoury. And people
inside the Labor Party know that. A senior staffer I
remember last week said to me that if this if
they do get out of this alive, Sussan Ley, if
(08:21):
she gets out of this alive and the party unites,
that Labor's going to go through a really tricky next
few years as the as more renewables come online, because
there's not much of a trajectory for power prices to
come down. But to make that argument convincingly, you need
your own coherent plan, not just around the detail of
the policy. I mean, in this new energy policy we've
seen today, there's actually no other Explanation. No new line
(08:46):
item on how they will reduce emissions other than to
speak vaguely about technology. They don't have much of a
leg to stand on when they talk about climate credentials,
which are even if it's not a top priority in
the suburbs and inner cities of major cities. It's kind
of seen as a minimum standard for a major party
these days.
S1 (09:02):
They did talk about, um, uh, the capacity investment scheme.
So basically, which new energy projects a government would underwrite.
And at the moment that's focused on renewable energy. And
they basically said more or less, yep, we would underwrite
or we would put taxpayer money into new gas fields
and new coal fired power stations.
S3 (09:21):
Opening that up. And they say that government subsidies are
too targeted towards renewables, and we need to be technology neutral.
S4 (09:26):
I mean, I mean, it's maybe a slightly off Broadway point,
but and as Paul says, Susan Lee railed against these
subsidies for renewable energy. But, I mean, there are subsidies, right?
Throughout the federal budget, there's a diesel fuel rebate subsidy
worth tens of billions of dollars every year to big
miners because they build and maintain the roads that their
trucks drive on, for example. You know, it's not unusual
(09:50):
for governments to pick winners and, uh, and try and
steer an industry in a certain direction. And that's exactly
what the liberals, when they were last in government, did, too.
S1 (09:58):
And I would say the Nats probably benefit from those
kinds of subsidies the most. But that doesn't mean that
it's not a powerful line of attack for the coalition.
And we heard Jane Hume sort of raising some of
those arguments on this podcast last week, the sort of
subsidies that renewable energy is getting. And, you know, the
idea that the government is picking winners in this race.
S4 (10:17):
Jack, can I just pick up a point that Paul
made earlier? What I think is happening here, in part,
is an attempt at a rerun of the Tony Abbott
strategy when he became opposition leader late 2009, early 2010,
the liberals gambled that public sentiment would turn on climate.
As you know, the impact on households became more visible.
(10:38):
And I think that's exactly what the coalition is doing now.
And to Paul's exact point, there is a chance, and
labor knows that there's a chance that public sentiment could
shift again.
S1 (10:48):
Yeah. We had I mean, that was an incredibly well
run and effective political campaign that Tony Abbott ran. He
won a huge, huge majority in Parliament with that campaign.
You know, the $200 lamb roast and so forth. It's
a really good point. It's kind of like a rerun
of that.
S3 (11:03):
Times have changed, though. I mean, the the level of
investment in renewables has the economy is locked in on
the green energy transition. Big super funds invest in green energy.
All the big miners are committed to 20, 50 net
zero targets and are trying to reform the way they
go about business. The whole business community is going down
(11:26):
that path. So there is there is an opportunity for
the Liberal Party to hone in very narrowly on energy
prices and say, and there's actually widespread consensus on this
on the left and right, right of the Liberal Party,
that the way labor is going about the green transition
is imperfect. There needs to be more focus on gas,
less ideological, less ideological opposition to things like nuclear. But
(11:50):
if you junk the net zero aspiration or target entirely
the fear of a character like Tim Wilson or a
Jane Hume is that you pull the rug out from
underneath the whole thing, have no credibility to rest on.
And you can't win that argument about how how you
navigate the green transition, because you don't look committed to
it in any way.
S1 (12:08):
Yeah. You don't you don't have any credibility on the issue,
so don't bother arguing it kind of thing.
S4 (12:12):
Bizarrely, in a way, um, Peter Dutton has arguably more
credibility on climate, uh, back when he was leader than
Sussan Ley now does because they were committed to 2050
under Peter Dutton. And that allowed them to argue for
in part allowed them to argue for nuclear power. Now
we've got the liberals saying we oppose net zero by 2050. Oh,
(12:33):
but we do care about the climate. We really do.
S1 (12:35):
Let's talk about that, because that's a really good point.
I want to talk about Suzanne Lee's leadership. She played
her cards so close to her chest she did not
we did not know what her position was on net
zero going into that meeting. I don't believe she spoke
in the meeting about what her position was. So we
still don't really know what she really, really in her
heart of hearts thinks was that an effective strategy and
is her leadership secure now that she's, um, she's fought
(12:59):
her way through this issue?
S4 (13:00):
James, I'm in the middle of writing a column on
exactly this, Jackie. And look, the truth is, um, I
think she I mean, my view is, I think she
led from the back, not the front, and that that's disappointing. She, um,
kind of almost abandoned the moderates who helped install her
to appease the conservatives who don't want her. And that,
(13:22):
you know, okay, the conservatives have had their win here.
She's disillusioned her allies. And if you know, if this
is even actually settled, then another issue is going to
come up, like immigration, like the people who are gunning
for Susan Lee will continue to gun for Susan Lee.
I don't think her leadership is safe.
S1 (13:40):
Paul, what do you think?
S3 (13:41):
No, her leadership is not safe. Uh, in fact, it's
if it continues to unravel in the next couple of weeks.
I wouldn't have said this a week ago, but if
if the if it continues to cascade and the net
zero issue is not resolved today with this new position
that talks about net zero as a, uh, what's the
(14:02):
what's the term a welcome outcome rather than an aspiration?
There's a chance that this just continues on and it
gets to the point before Christmas, potentially, that the party
makes a call to move on. I think it's more
likely that she gets into next year because the right
Andrew Hastie and Angus Taylor are not ready. Angus Taylor
is not keen to become the leader in a in
(14:22):
a kind of swift and haphazard way. He wants it.
He wants the party room to be convinced of the
need to move on. Susan Lee.
S4 (14:30):
That makes sense. There's also a bit of a a
rolling the first female leader factor. I mean, she's been in.
S1 (14:36):
The jock factor to do with being a lady leader.
S3 (14:39):
And Angus Taylor is hugely cognizant of that in private.
He doesn't want to appear to be, uh, the bloke
who tore down the first leader. But there is a
there is pretty widespread acknowledgement across the party room now
that unless there is a turnaround, she's lost too much
authority to retain and remain in the role for very long.
S4 (15:00):
Angus Taylor is so concerned about it that when he
walked into the party room with Andrew Hastie yesterday, it
just happened, coincidentally that Jess Collins, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and
Sarah Henderson were coincidentally, uh, placed right in front of
the two blokes who want to be leader.
S1 (15:17):
You're so cynical, James. Maybe they're just faster walkers.
S4 (15:19):
Well, that's sensible shoes. Faster walkers. Could be anything.
S1 (15:23):
Clipping along, clipping along in their heels. Um, that's probably
stereotypical and sexist of me to say that. Talk to
me about what polling Internal polling was presented to the
liberals at this meeting by Andrew Hurst, the federal Liberal
Party director, because he sort of said, look, you guys
do what you want. You do you, you vote the
way you want. But this is what our polling is
(15:43):
picking up will happen in the electorate if you guys
adopt an abandoned net zero.
S3 (15:49):
Yeah. So Andrew Hurst is the federal director of the party.
He runs the party's campaigns. He ran 20, 19, 22
and 25 elections. He presented qualitative data. So no numbers
because numbers get distorted by the different sides of the
party to suit their agenda. He gave qualitative data out
of focus groups, which showed that, particularly among younger and
middle aged people, the term net zero has a strong
(16:10):
connotation with addressing the issue of climate change. People see
those two items as see the term net zero as
a proxy for credibility on climate change. So that's a
was a polite warning to MPs to say, hey, if
you go down this path, you might struggle to convince
these people to vote for you. But there was a
bit there was something on the other end as well.
He showed that there was an ability to persuade voters
(16:33):
on the cost of net zero. If you convince them
that it is directly lead into financial hip pocket concerns
for you and your family, to say Labor's net zero
policy is actually hurting you. That starts to shift opinion.
If you educate people, the big task for the liberals
is can you actually educate people to that effect?
S4 (16:50):
I'm not sure who's the advocate in the current party
room who takes up the task and achieves this. And
we were chatting about this in the office earlier, you know,
could the Liberal Party miss Josh Frydenberg any more right now?
You know, as a, as a, you know, advocate, he's,
you know, still got the scars on his back from
the National Energy Guarantee debate back in 2017.
S1 (17:12):
Yeah. But that didn't I mean just cutting in there.
He was running that policy but he didn't lose any
political skin over it. It was Turnbull who got knifed
over that policy as a result of that policy, Josh
Frydenberg walked away scot free.
S4 (17:23):
Absolutely agree. My my point is more that he knows
how to navigate a climate fight within the coalition party room.
S3 (17:29):
I mean, in the public, this is a party that,
you know, I mean, I think the voice, the voice
is almost an exception. It's really an exception to this rule.
But this is a party that's now disconnected with so
many of the kind of centers of power across Australia.
And just like parts of the community across Australia, big
sections of younger voters, the business community at corporate level, uh,
(17:52):
the Liberal Party has much less influence than they used to.
Their ability to reach voters and shift opinion across culture
and society has been diminished for such a long time
that to create this huge national fight on a policy
area where really there is a widespread consensus that the green,
(18:13):
the green transition is something that is occurring, is a
huge fight for a disheveled opposition to take on its mainstream,
let alone.
S1 (18:21):
Mainstream Australian values. Kind of issue for me because, as
you say, since Tony Abbott and Andrew Hearst. You know,
the director of the Liberal Party knows this better than
anyone else because he worked for Tony Abbott when Tony
Abbott was doing his, um, anti-carbon tax campaign. Um, and beyond, um,
times have moved on and Australian values have changed around
(18:41):
this stuff. And Scott Morrison probably knows that better than most.
S3 (18:45):
But there is growing scepticism around how quickly we're moving
on renewables. And that's a global that's a global thing.
And you see that in research across the Western world.
So this is not it's not I don't want to
create the impression that there's kind of, um, the people
adore how labor is going about this.
S1 (19:01):
You bring up the global context. And that was um,
that was in the press conference as well. I think
Dan Tehan talked about Australia under a coalition government would
move in line with comparable countries to reduce emissions. So
he was sort of pegging our fortunes or our aspirations
under a coalition government to how the rest of the
world's going and what they're deciding. And we all know
(19:22):
that there is a bit of a retreat on emissions
reduction and commitment to, you know, energy transition in the
global context. So that could help the Liberal Party, couldn't it, James?
S4 (19:32):
Yeah, potentially. I mean, a couple of things. I'd say Jack's, um,
net zero is a proxy for the future. And if
you're a political party that says, um, you know, we
don't believe that we need to reach this, then you
run the risk of saying we don't care about the future.
I was talking to a liberal about this earlier today in.
S3 (19:49):
Terms of, like, looking like a modern political.
S4 (19:50):
Yeah, exactly. And they said, look, there's a reason why
Queensland Premier David Crisafulli, why WA and New South Wales
opposition leaders Basil Zempilas and Mark Speakman are still committed
to net zero, even though the rank and file don't
want it. And that's that future framing in the international context.
You are absolutely correct that support is softening. And the
(20:11):
other thing I wanted to say, Jack, is, um, we
ran a poll earlier this week, a poll about people's
preferences for net zero, how quickly we should get there,
and actually in the Australian community, support has softened a
little bit for getting there no matter what. Um, and
it certainly softened in the last sort of 3 or
4 years from I think it was 2021, just as
(20:35):
Scott Morrison and his government were battling with it. Liberals
supported it at something like 55%. Like 55% of Liberal
voters supported reaching net zero. That number has crashed. And
I think in part, that's what Liberals and Nationals are
sort of gambling on or hoping will continue that consensus breaks.
S1 (20:54):
But Paul, doesn't this come back to what the question
that you the great question that you asked Sussan Ley
in that press conference, that it's kind of word games,
like most people in the electorate, I'm going to say,
probably couldn't give you a breakdown of what net zero
really means. It's just become a proxy for whether or
not you're actually, you know, you want to take the
step to, to get to the outcome.
S3 (21:13):
Yeah. It's become the debate over net zero has become
a vehicle for so many different contests over values and
grievances within the Liberal Party, its base and its party room.
As we talked about with Jane Hume a couple of
weeks ago here, this party room debate on net zero
had become so reductionist and semantic. There is now a
(21:36):
few weeks ago, there was a strong consensus across the
left and the right to maintain some sort of aspiration
towards net zero. So strip it out of legislation so
that you don't have to use government subsidies and other
harsh interventions to get there, which in the mind of
a liberal cost the economy but maintain it as an
aspiration because clearly it's a good thing to get to
(21:56):
if you can. And then as the weeks go on,
support inside the right diminishes for that prospect. And so
what you end up with this week is a more
mealy mouthed, watered down version of an aspiration to net zero.
And that's described by Susan Lee and Dan Tehan as
an outcome that would be welcome. Quote. Welcome. And so
(22:18):
you asked Susan Lee, what's the difference between an outcome
that is welcome and that you will use technology to
try and achieve and an aspiration or a goal or
a target? You think these are all synonymous terms, but
because net zero has become so toxic and because it's
become wrapped up in so many different brawls and has
become totemic, a leader of the Liberal Party who's trying
(22:40):
to save her job cannot say she aspires to it.
She can only say that it would be welcome. So
it's words. It's word salad, and it's absurd.
S1 (22:47):
I actually love that phrasing, and I really want to
adopt it on the podcast. Like we can talk about
things as being welcome outcomes. Like, you know, we won't
necessarily ask Paul Sakhile to be on the podcast again
next week, but it would be a welcome outcome if
he just turned up at the same time as we
were recording it.
S3 (23:03):
But don't make it a target or an aim.
S1 (23:05):
No, and we're certainly not going to do anything.
S3 (23:07):
That would be highly improper.
S1 (23:09):
Yes. Yeah, guys, it is a welcome outcome that you
have both wandered into the podcast studio at the same
time to record this podcast with me immediately after this,
this interesting press conference that we saw on Thursday Arvo.
We've run out of time. We want to have you
both back on again soon. James. It's been way too
long and we will see you both very soon.
S4 (23:27):
You're most welcome, Jackie. Thanks for having me on.
S3 (23:29):
If anyone needs a discount code for my shirt, um.
S4 (23:32):
It's in.
S3 (23:32):
The show.
S4 (23:33):
Notes. Thanks.
S1 (23:35):
Oh, dear. Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong with
technical assistance from Michael Pack. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills,
and Tom McKendrick is our head of audio. To listen
to our episodes as soon as they drop, follow Inside
Politics on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen to
(23:55):
your podcasts. To stay up to date with all the politics,
news and exclusives, visit The Age and The Sydney Morning
Herald website. To support our journalism, subscribe to us by
visiting The Age or smh.com.au. Subscribe. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank
you for listening.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley. This week in
federal politics, there was really only one show in town,
and that was the compelling and can't look away car
crash that is the Liberal Party's continued ructions on its
net zero policy. They culminated or maybe even concluded on
Thursday afternoon, when the Liberal Party met and finally came
(00:25):
up with a policy.
S2 (00:25):
Liberal party will remove a net zero target from our
policy and if elected, we will remove the 43.
S1 (00:33):
I'm talking to our chief political correspondent, Paul Cicala, as usual,
and our special guest, chief political commentator James Massola, who
have both just come out of the press conference at
Sussan Ley held after that Liberal Party room meeting. Welcome, fellas.
S3 (00:48):
Hey, Jack. Hey, Jack. Good to be with you. Welcome back,
James Long. A long hiatus from the pod. Was just
admiring your blue shirt.
S1 (00:54):
Paul, we've been teasing Paul about his shirt offline, but
you know, the listeners won't be able to you, the
listeners should be picturing Paul in a nice denim shirt anyway.
S3 (01:06):
If I watched the Susan Lee press conference, I could
have seen the shirt. I'm sure many, many people paused
to try and do a Google reverse image search to
see where they could buy it.
S1 (01:12):
Yeah, yeah, we'll put that in the show notes, actually,
where Paul shops through denim shirts. Now, fellas, what happened
in the in the Liberal Party meeting the long awaited
Liberal Party meeting Thursday afternoon.
S3 (01:23):
So this has been the culmination of really months of
internal debate inside the Liberal Party on where they land,
on energy policy going back from the start. There's a
debate right after the election between the nationals and the
liberals on whether they remain together as a party. A
key sticking point for the National Party, led by people
like Matt Canavan, Bridget McKenzie, Barnaby Joyce, who now appears
(01:43):
to be splitting off from the nationals, is that they
want to drop the net zero target to keep the
party together. Sussan Ley tries to find this pathway through,
which is to review all energy policies so she doesn't
commit either way to net zero. She gets the coalition
back together after a brief split, and the party goes on.
This long process of reviewing all of its policies, but
(02:04):
particularly net zero because there's so much heat around it.
The process is pretty slow. It's led by the energy spokesman,
Dan Tehan. There's this working group that meets sometimes but
doesn't make much make many tracks.
S4 (02:16):
It's not clear what they actually achieved, is it? It's not.
Go on.
S1 (02:19):
I want to get to that because I feel like
they haven't really shown us their homework for us to mark.
S3 (02:24):
I had one of a Liberal MP say to me
last night that when they saw the document that Dan
Tehan was drafting for today, that it looked like, uh,
just a cobbling together of some thoughts in the last week.
And they were stunned at how little work had been done.
Dan Tehan would, would object to that because there were
a lot of dot points in it today. Um, but
it wasn't.
S1 (02:43):
A dot point love a dot point.
S3 (02:45):
And so they embark on this process, uh, that Dan
Tehan says publicly could go for about 12, 9 to
12 months. So they'd land an energy policy sometime in
the middle of next year. But then it all accelerates
over the last month or so. The National Party does
its own review, led by Matt Canavan and another MP,
but Matt Canavan is a hardcore anti-net zero. And they
(03:05):
jump the liberals and they say we have no plans
to do net zero junking it entirely. And this jolts
the liberals into action because they necessarily need to speed
up their process to unite on a coalition policy. And
the nationals move, and just the general hostility towards net
zero and Liberal Party base starts to shift attitudes. In
the middle of the Liberal Party room, it shifts from
(03:27):
key right wingers like James Patterson and Angus Taylor from
pro net zero, or at least pro some watering down
of net zero to hard anti net zero. And then
we land today after this real leadership crisis that's occurred
over the past two weeks for Sussan Ley to try
and land a Liberal policy, and here we are today.
S2 (03:41):
Australians deserve affordable energy and responsible emissions reduction.
S1 (03:49):
James tell us about the press conference afterwards. Because, I mean,
going into that meeting, it was pretty much openly reported
by you and other people that they they decided to
dump it or it was it was a done deal
because the numbers for keeping net zero just weren't there.
There weren't enough moderates in the party room to keep
the policy. So what did Susan Lee to sort of justify, say,
(04:10):
to justify this position in, you know, what was quite
a strong press conference afterwards?
S4 (04:14):
Yeah, look, it was a reasonable performance. And I choose
that word performance very carefully, jacki. Yeah.
S1 (04:19):
Good, good. Good word.
S4 (04:20):
Yeah. Um, so where we've landed, of course, is the, uh,
liberals now remain committed to Paris but are coming out
of or would get out of the net zero, uh,
legislative agreement or deal that would repeal the legislation that's
been passed. Susan Lynn was specifically asked, you know, more
than once, um, what about 2030 and 2035, our interim,
(04:45):
what are called nationally determined commitments to reduce emissions ahead
of 2050? And she said, well, you know, they're gone too.
And then, I mean, you know, she said, we're doing
this because we're siding with Australians. We want affordable, reliable
power for them. Like the talking point, she hit all
the talking points. She sounded reasonably good. But, you know,
(05:06):
and she accused the PM of lying about power bills
coming down. And power bills will always be cheaper under
the liberals. But at the end of the day, she
couldn't answer a pretty straightforward question, which is how can
you be in Paris but not committed to net zero
and not have interim targets? Because Paris is a framework
to get to net zero and she doesn't have an answer.
(05:29):
And that, I think, goes to the heart of why
this was not necessarily the most convincing position. It's not
necessarily the most convincing position they've landed in or policy outcome. But,
you know, it was a good performance.
S1 (05:41):
There isn't a policy, I would argue. And this gets
back to the jokes that we're making about Danton's working group.
And no offense to Jan ten or the working group,
but it has been a long time coming that they've
been moving through this process, which has looked very disorderly.
And finally, at the end of the process, all they've
told us is what we kind of already intuited, which
was that they're dumping net zero, just, you know, for listeners,
(06:03):
just to clarify. Australia has ratified into law under Malcolm
Turnbull's government its commitment to the Paris Agreement and and
the target. And then within that, the labor government has
come in. Albanese government has come in. And in 2022
it's legislated its interim targets, including the net zero target. Right.
So so Leigh's basically come out for the first time
and said categorically, if the coalition wins government, we are
(06:25):
going to get rid of those interim targets and long
term targets from Australian legislation. But we're keeping our commitment
to Paris. Nobody knows how that's going to work, and
they haven't told us yet.
S4 (06:36):
One extra little thing I have to add, Jacqui. Um,
it was Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor as energy minister
who signed us up to the 2050. Now they didn't
legislate it. Labor did that. But it was Scott Morrison
and now and sorry and Angus Taylor, who's now one
of the leading proponents of dropping net zero. Yeah. The
other thing I think that's worth pointing out is that
(06:56):
where we've landed now is, you know, okay, they're dropping
support for net zero, but we've arrived here, much like
we did with the voice to Parliament, with the nationals,
the smaller coalition party leading the liberals by the nose
to a position that a lot of liberals, particularly in
the moderate grouping, are not comfortable with. You know, one
of them said to me the other day, why did
(07:18):
we bother supporting Susan to be leader when we're going
to end up with the National's climate policy? And it's
a fair point.
S1 (07:25):
And, Paul, I want to ask you about that, because
the voice is a very interesting comparison, because the voice,
as James has just said, the coalition position ended up
being sort of led by the Nats, and they managed
to turn public opinion around or they managed to kind
of I don't know how you would put it, but
basically they ended up being on the right side of
that argument in terms of what the Australian public wanted.
You know, the Susan Lee press conference was all about
(07:47):
pursuing cost reduction, focusing on households. She talked about being
a mum, you know, with bills, electricity bills piling up
on the windowsill, like she was sort of empathizing with
householders in that same position. Could that be an effective
strategy for them?
S3 (08:01):
Well, I think liberals are right when they they have
justified hope that if they get their show in order
and develop a coherent plan around climate change and electricity prices,
that there are serious chinks in Labor's armoury. And people
inside the Labor Party know that. A senior staffer I
remember last week said to me that if this if
they do get out of this alive, Sussan Ley, if
(08:21):
she gets out of this alive and the party unites,
that Labor's going to go through a really tricky next
few years as the as more renewables come online, because
there's not much of a trajectory for power prices to
come down. But to make that argument convincingly, you need
your own coherent plan, not just around the detail of
the policy. I mean, in this new energy policy we've
seen today, there's actually no other Explanation. No new line
(08:46):
item on how they will reduce emissions other than to
speak vaguely about technology. They don't have much of a
leg to stand on when they talk about climate credentials,
which are even if it's not a top priority in
the suburbs and inner cities of major cities. It's kind
of seen as a minimum standard for a major party
these days.
S1 (09:02):
They did talk about, um, uh, the capacity investment scheme.
So basically, which new energy projects a government would underwrite.
And at the moment that's focused on renewable energy. And
they basically said more or less, yep, we would underwrite
or we would put taxpayer money into new gas fields
and new coal fired power stations.
S3 (09:21):
Opening that up. And they say that government subsidies are
too targeted towards renewables, and we need to be technology neutral.
S4 (09:26):
I mean, I mean, it's maybe a slightly off Broadway point,
but and as Paul says, Susan Lee railed against these
subsidies for renewable energy. But, I mean, there are subsidies, right?
Throughout the federal budget, there's a diesel fuel rebate subsidy
worth tens of billions of dollars every year to big
miners because they build and maintain the roads that their
trucks drive on, for example. You know, it's not unusual
(09:50):
for governments to pick winners and, uh, and try and
steer an industry in a certain direction. And that's exactly
what the liberals, when they were last in government, did, too.
S1 (09:58):
And I would say the Nats probably benefit from those
kinds of subsidies the most. But that doesn't mean that
it's not a powerful line of attack for the coalition.
And we heard Jane Hume sort of raising some of
those arguments on this podcast last week, the sort of
subsidies that renewable energy is getting. And, you know, the
idea that the government is picking winners in this race.
S4 (10:17):
Jack, can I just pick up a point that Paul
made earlier? What I think is happening here, in part,
is an attempt at a rerun of the Tony Abbott
strategy when he became opposition leader late 2009, early 2010,
the liberals gambled that public sentiment would turn on climate.
As you know, the impact on households became more visible.
(10:38):
And I think that's exactly what the coalition is doing now.
And to Paul's exact point, there is a chance, and
labor knows that there's a chance that public sentiment could
shift again.
S1 (10:48):
Yeah. We had I mean, that was an incredibly well
run and effective political campaign that Tony Abbott ran. He
won a huge, huge majority in Parliament with that campaign.
You know, the $200 lamb roast and so forth. It's
a really good point. It's kind of like a rerun
of that.
S3 (11:03):
Times have changed, though. I mean, the the level of
investment in renewables has the economy is locked in on
the green energy transition. Big super funds invest in green energy.
All the big miners are committed to 20, 50 net
zero targets and are trying to reform the way they
go about business. The whole business community is going down
(11:26):
that path. So there is there is an opportunity for
the Liberal Party to hone in very narrowly on energy
prices and say, and there's actually widespread consensus on this
on the left and right, right of the Liberal Party,
that the way labor is going about the green transition
is imperfect. There needs to be more focus on gas,
less ideological, less ideological opposition to things like nuclear. But
(11:50):
if you junk the net zero aspiration or target entirely
the fear of a character like Tim Wilson or a
Jane Hume is that you pull the rug out from
underneath the whole thing, have no credibility to rest on.
And you can't win that argument about how how you
navigate the green transition, because you don't look committed to
it in any way.
S1 (12:08):
Yeah. You don't you don't have any credibility on the issue,
so don't bother arguing it kind of thing.
S4 (12:12):
Bizarrely, in a way, um, Peter Dutton has arguably more
credibility on climate, uh, back when he was leader than
Sussan Ley now does because they were committed to 2050
under Peter Dutton. And that allowed them to argue for
in part allowed them to argue for nuclear power. Now
we've got the liberals saying we oppose net zero by 2050. Oh,
(12:33):
but we do care about the climate. We really do.
S1 (12:35):
Let's talk about that, because that's a really good point.
I want to talk about Suzanne Lee's leadership. She played
her cards so close to her chest she did not
we did not know what her position was on net
zero going into that meeting. I don't believe she spoke
in the meeting about what her position was. So we
still don't really know what she really, really in her
heart of hearts thinks was that an effective strategy and
is her leadership secure now that she's, um, she's fought
(12:59):
her way through this issue?
S4 (13:00):
James, I'm in the middle of writing a column on
exactly this, Jackie. And look, the truth is, um, I
think she I mean, my view is, I think she
led from the back, not the front, and that that's disappointing. She, um,
kind of almost abandoned the moderates who helped install her
to appease the conservatives who don't want her. And that,
(13:22):
you know, okay, the conservatives have had their win here.
She's disillusioned her allies. And if you know, if this
is even actually settled, then another issue is going to
come up, like immigration, like the people who are gunning
for Susan Lee will continue to gun for Susan Lee.
I don't think her leadership is safe.
S1 (13:40):
Paul, what do you think?
S3 (13:41):
No, her leadership is not safe. Uh, in fact, it's
if it continues to unravel in the next couple of weeks.
I wouldn't have said this a week ago, but if
if the if it continues to cascade and the net
zero issue is not resolved today with this new position
that talks about net zero as a, uh, what's the
(14:02):
what's the term a welcome outcome rather than an aspiration?
There's a chance that this just continues on and it
gets to the point before Christmas, potentially, that the party
makes a call to move on. I think it's more
likely that she gets into next year because the right
Andrew Hastie and Angus Taylor are not ready. Angus Taylor
is not keen to become the leader in a in
(14:22):
a kind of swift and haphazard way. He wants it.
He wants the party room to be convinced of the
need to move on. Susan Lee.
S4 (14:30):
That makes sense. There's also a bit of a a
rolling the first female leader factor. I mean, she's been in.
S1 (14:36):
The jock factor to do with being a lady leader.
S3 (14:39):
And Angus Taylor is hugely cognizant of that in private.
He doesn't want to appear to be, uh, the bloke
who tore down the first leader. But there is a
there is pretty widespread acknowledgement across the party room now
that unless there is a turnaround, she's lost too much
authority to retain and remain in the role for very long.
S4 (15:00):
Angus Taylor is so concerned about it that when he
walked into the party room with Andrew Hastie yesterday, it
just happened, coincidentally that Jess Collins, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and
Sarah Henderson were coincidentally, uh, placed right in front of
the two blokes who want to be leader.
S1 (15:17):
You're so cynical, James. Maybe they're just faster walkers.
S4 (15:19):
Well, that's sensible shoes. Faster walkers. Could be anything.
S1 (15:23):
Clipping along, clipping along in their heels. Um, that's probably
stereotypical and sexist of me to say that. Talk to
me about what polling Internal polling was presented to the
liberals at this meeting by Andrew Hurst, the federal Liberal
Party director, because he sort of said, look, you guys
do what you want. You do you, you vote the
way you want. But this is what our polling is
(15:43):
picking up will happen in the electorate if you guys
adopt an abandoned net zero.
S3 (15:49):
Yeah. So Andrew Hurst is the federal director of the party.
He runs the party's campaigns. He ran 20, 19, 22
and 25 elections. He presented qualitative data. So no numbers
because numbers get distorted by the different sides of the
party to suit their agenda. He gave qualitative data out
of focus groups, which showed that, particularly among younger and
middle aged people, the term net zero has a strong
(16:10):
connotation with addressing the issue of climate change. People see
those two items as see the term net zero as
a proxy for credibility on climate change. So that's a
was a polite warning to MPs to say, hey, if
you go down this path, you might struggle to convince
these people to vote for you. But there was a
bit there was something on the other end as well.
He showed that there was an ability to persuade voters
(16:33):
on the cost of net zero. If you convince them
that it is directly lead into financial hip pocket concerns
for you and your family, to say Labor's net zero
policy is actually hurting you. That starts to shift opinion.
If you educate people, the big task for the liberals
is can you actually educate people to that effect?
S4 (16:50):
I'm not sure who's the advocate in the current party
room who takes up the task and achieves this. And
we were chatting about this in the office earlier, you know,
could the Liberal Party miss Josh Frydenberg any more right now?
You know, as a, as a, you know, advocate, he's,
you know, still got the scars on his back from
the National Energy Guarantee debate back in 2017.
S1 (17:12):
Yeah. But that didn't I mean just cutting in there.
He was running that policy but he didn't lose any
political skin over it. It was Turnbull who got knifed
over that policy as a result of that policy, Josh
Frydenberg walked away scot free.
S4 (17:23):
Absolutely agree. My my point is more that he knows
how to navigate a climate fight within the coalition party room.
S3 (17:29):
I mean, in the public, this is a party that,
you know, I mean, I think the voice, the voice
is almost an exception. It's really an exception to this rule.
But this is a party that's now disconnected with so
many of the kind of centers of power across Australia.
And just like parts of the community across Australia, big
sections of younger voters, the business community at corporate level, uh,
(17:52):
the Liberal Party has much less influence than they used to.
Their ability to reach voters and shift opinion across culture
and society has been diminished for such a long time
that to create this huge national fight on a policy
area where really there is a widespread consensus that the green,
(18:13):
the green transition is something that is occurring, is a
huge fight for a disheveled opposition to take on its mainstream,
let alone.
S1 (18:21):
Mainstream Australian values. Kind of issue for me because, as
you say, since Tony Abbott and Andrew Hearst. You know,
the director of the Liberal Party knows this better than
anyone else because he worked for Tony Abbott when Tony
Abbott was doing his, um, anti-carbon tax campaign. Um, and beyond, um,
times have moved on and Australian values have changed around
(18:41):
this stuff. And Scott Morrison probably knows that better than most.
S3 (18:45):
But there is growing scepticism around how quickly we're moving
on renewables. And that's a global that's a global thing.
And you see that in research across the Western world.
So this is not it's not I don't want to
create the impression that there's kind of, um, the people
adore how labor is going about this.
S1 (19:01):
You bring up the global context. And that was um,
that was in the press conference as well. I think
Dan Tehan talked about Australia under a coalition government would
move in line with comparable countries to reduce emissions. So
he was sort of pegging our fortunes or our aspirations
under a coalition government to how the rest of the
world's going and what they're deciding. And we all know
(19:22):
that there is a bit of a retreat on emissions
reduction and commitment to, you know, energy transition in the
global context. So that could help the Liberal Party, couldn't it, James?
S4 (19:32):
Yeah, potentially. I mean, a couple of things. I'd say Jack's, um,
net zero is a proxy for the future. And if
you're a political party that says, um, you know, we
don't believe that we need to reach this, then you
run the risk of saying we don't care about the future.
I was talking to a liberal about this earlier today in.
S3 (19:49):
Terms of, like, looking like a modern political.
S4 (19:50):
Yeah, exactly. And they said, look, there's a reason why
Queensland Premier David Crisafulli, why WA and New South Wales
opposition leaders Basil Zempilas and Mark Speakman are still committed
to net zero, even though the rank and file don't
want it. And that's that future framing in the international context.
You are absolutely correct that support is softening. And the
(20:11):
other thing I wanted to say, Jack, is, um, we
ran a poll earlier this week, a poll about people's
preferences for net zero, how quickly we should get there,
and actually in the Australian community, support has softened a
little bit for getting there no matter what. Um, and
it certainly softened in the last sort of 3 or
4 years from I think it was 2021, just as
(20:35):
Scott Morrison and his government were battling with it. Liberals
supported it at something like 55%. Like 55% of Liberal
voters supported reaching net zero. That number has crashed. And
I think in part, that's what Liberals and Nationals are
sort of gambling on or hoping will continue that consensus breaks.
S1 (20:54):
But Paul, doesn't this come back to what the question
that you the great question that you asked Sussan Ley
in that press conference, that it's kind of word games,
like most people in the electorate, I'm going to say,
probably couldn't give you a breakdown of what net zero
really means. It's just become a proxy for whether or
not you're actually, you know, you want to take the
step to, to get to the outcome.
S3 (21:13):
Yeah. It's become the debate over net zero has become
a vehicle for so many different contests over values and
grievances within the Liberal Party, its base and its party room.
As we talked about with Jane Hume a couple of
weeks ago here, this party room debate on net zero
had become so reductionist and semantic. There is now a
(21:36):
few weeks ago, there was a strong consensus across the
left and the right to maintain some sort of aspiration
towards net zero. So strip it out of legislation so
that you don't have to use government subsidies and other
harsh interventions to get there, which in the mind of
a liberal cost the economy but maintain it as an
aspiration because clearly it's a good thing to get to
(21:56):
if you can. And then as the weeks go on,
support inside the right diminishes for that prospect. And so
what you end up with this week is a more
mealy mouthed, watered down version of an aspiration to net zero.
And that's described by Susan Lee and Dan Tehan as
an outcome that would be welcome. Quote. Welcome. And so
(22:18):
you asked Susan Lee, what's the difference between an outcome
that is welcome and that you will use technology to
try and achieve and an aspiration or a goal or
a target? You think these are all synonymous terms, but
because net zero has become so toxic and because it's
become wrapped up in so many different brawls and has
become totemic, a leader of the Liberal Party who's trying
(22:40):
to save her job cannot say she aspires to it.
She can only say that it would be welcome. So
it's words. It's word salad, and it's absurd.
S1 (22:47):
I actually love that phrasing, and I really want to
adopt it on the podcast. Like we can talk about
things as being welcome outcomes. Like, you know, we won't
necessarily ask Paul Sakhile to be on the podcast again
next week, but it would be a welcome outcome if
he just turned up at the same time as we
were recording it.
S3 (23:03):
But don't make it a target or an aim.
S1 (23:05):
No, and we're certainly not going to do anything.
S3 (23:07):
That would be highly improper.
S1 (23:09):
Yes. Yeah, guys, it is a welcome outcome that you
have both wandered into the podcast studio at the same
time to record this podcast with me immediately after this,
this interesting press conference that we saw on Thursday Arvo.
We've run out of time. We want to have you
both back on again soon. James. It's been way too
long and we will see you both very soon.
S4 (23:27):
You're most welcome, Jackie. Thanks for having me on.
S3 (23:29):
If anyone needs a discount code for my shirt, um.
S4 (23:32):
It's in.
S3 (23:32):
The show.
S4 (23:33):
Notes. Thanks.
S1 (23:35):
Oh, dear. Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong with
technical assistance from Michael Pack. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills,
and Tom McKendrick is our head of audio. To listen
to our episodes as soon as they drop, follow Inside
Politics on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen to
(23:55):
your podcasts. To stay up to date with all the politics,
news and exclusives, visit The Age and The Sydney Morning
Herald website. To support our journalism, subscribe to us by
visiting The Age or smh.com.au. Subscribe. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank
you for listening.
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